Technology will allow for 21st century teaching and learning through Distributed and blended learning opportunities. Students will learn in a multitude of environments—online, virtual, or face-to-face—and therefore require changes to physical spaces (Rudd et al., 2006).
Advances in technology and “digital creativity” will require reconfiguring learning spaces to allow for and encourage collaboration and “development of communities of interest and practice” (Rudd et al., 2006). Students will need “opportunities to generate, share, edit, and publish materials” through various “internet discussion forums, messaging, social networking and social bookmarking tools, weblogs [or blogs] and wikis” (Ibid.). These tools will allow our students to create their own learning environments while fostering student-to-student or student-to-expert or a host of other learning arrangements that will become the mainstay of education in the 21st century. This new dynamic is rife with challenges; students will need to learn “how to acquire and build knowledge in social contexts, how to assess its quality and how best to apply it” (Ibid.)
A few design elements should be taken into account when integrating technology in classrooms. First, classrooms must adapt to technology, not the other way around. Seamless integration allows for a continuous “cognitive flow” . Second, there should be no bad view of the projection screen or display . Last, but not least, the learning space must “encourage and foster genuine, face-to-face communication" (Open Architecture Network, 2009). Regardless of the advances in technology, “we still need emotional connections to other human beings to create, inspire, and develop self-worth (Ibid.)
Advances in technology and “digital creativity” will require reconfiguring learning spaces to allow for and encourage collaboration and “development of communities of interest and practice” (Rudd et al., 2006). Students will need “opportunities to generate, share, edit, and publish materials” through various “internet discussion forums, messaging, social networking and social bookmarking tools, weblogs [or blogs] and wikis” (Ibid.). These tools will allow our students to create their own learning environments while fostering student-to-student or student-to-expert or a host of other learning arrangements that will become the mainstay of education in the 21st century. This new dynamic is rife with challenges; students will need to learn “how to acquire and build knowledge in social contexts, how to assess its quality and how best to apply it” (Ibid.)
A few design elements should be taken into account when integrating technology in classrooms. First, classrooms must adapt to technology, not the other way around. Seamless integration allows for a continuous “cognitive flow” . Second, there should be no bad view of the projection screen or display . Last, but not least, the learning space must “encourage and foster genuine, face-to-face communication" (Open Architecture Network, 2009). Regardless of the advances in technology, “we still need emotional connections to other human beings to create, inspire, and develop self-worth (Ibid.)
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